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If you read my posts about this topic you can clearly see that I do not give a damn about getting merits.
I suppose that I could take your word on that point, and perhaps there is no real evidence that you were attempting to get merits?
By the way, this whole topic is not about you, either, and when members, such as me, respond to public posts, there are likely certain public elements to the response that might be targeted at either other possible readers or just making related post that we would like to make, within our discretion or just by happenstance.
I am not a professional bounty hunter, also.
Surely, you are bringing this up on your own, because I don't recall directly accusing you of such.. I doubt that I even thought that. Now you make me question my own thoughts about you.. and why would I care about you, except that I am responding to your post, right? ... hahahahahaha
But I give a damn when I read some people that seem to be so intitled to make fun, address others in an unpolite way and in a patronising way when their own records are full of garbage posts in my opinion.
Seems like these kinds of assertions would need examples, right? It is one thing if a member uses colorful and expressive and even assertive language and another thing if the member seems to be engaging in abusive behavior.
Of course, some higher ranked members are going to blow their tops sometimes, and perhaps even go overboard a bit in their addressing more junior members - including newbies.. but part of the justification for their behavior could be the pervasiveness of trolls, spammers and scammers. Surely, I cannot speak for others especially when there is not a context, but I believe sometimes strong language is appropriate, too, and sometimes members need to learn how to have a bit of a skin to tolerate "meanies" on the internet.
I am fairly certain if anyone is able to identify a pattern of behavior that goes overboard and reports the behavior, then at least it will be looked into by moderators/administrators, unless they conclude that the reported "abuse" does not rise to the level of disciplinary behavior.
I am sorry if I was not clearly enough about this.
Actually, sometimes clarification can be achieved through back and forth posts as long as posters are willing to go through such back and forth... Sometimes, the back and forth escalates and just goes into yelling back and forth...
Actually, in my forum history, I have had some fairly intensive back and forths with members, and sometimes we will "make up" later, even if we might have some disagreements about some of the fundamentals.
And yes, I am a newbie here and I never asked for anyone help because I like to find my own way to solve my own issues, if possible.
I find nothing wrong with attempts at self-sufficiency, and surely self-sufficient and resourceful folks are going to be able to learn and to provide value especially when it can be difficult to sort through good and bad information and even misleading information that comes out in these kinds of forums.
On the other hand, many of us might need some help from time to time in attempting to figure out some current dynamic in the space and not necessarily jumping to bad conclusions based on incomplete information... even some of the smartest posters need to gather some information from other members from time to time.. I am thinking about one particular poster who is considered real smart (I don't want to say the name), but anyhow, the point is that even the smartest posters sometimes will benefit themselves (and others) by asking some questions (even basic questions) before rushing to conclusions that are NOT sufficiently supported by evidence. From time to time, I am guilty of the same (by the way, some others might proclaim that I am guilty of this a lot, but surely I am not going to go anywhere near that level of concession... hahahahahaha).
Do not condemn other people for being different, anyway.
This point also seems to require some evidence, and sometimes the condemnation is not merely based on "being different" but instead based on some specific situation that has arisen.
Without having to go back and peruse every point that we made in our posts, for you and me, it seems that I have been condemning you (to the extent that my words fit into the category of condemnation) for failing and refusing to back up some of your conclusions, and I had also suggested some ways that you might attempt to provide value to the forum, if you were so inclined to share some of your research into the topics of your stated concerns.
We are all just humans afterall, so each one unique and different.
Not everyone here is a human, and that remains part of the problem in dealing with bots, and many newbies are bots, too.
The unique and different proclamation sounds like a meaningless platitude that does not progress the conversation.
One way that we can attempt to verify that another poster is human, and is a human that is attempting to provide value to the forum is by interacting with the poster. Part of the issue that involved the current topic of this thread, here, is that theymos is attempting to provide weeding out tools that make it more difficult for non-humans and disingenuous posters to invade the forum and to take away forum value.
Edit: Just to be clear, I did not pretend to say that asking for help is a garbage post. English is not my native language, as you may suspect by now.
Perhaps there has been some miscommunications based on language issues (English level), so fair enough that you attempt to clarify that.
I hope that this time I was clear enough why I do not have a lot of respect for this change of rules and how they were implemented and are being addressed.
Based on your already stated concerns, it remains unclear to me why you are spending so much time on this particular topic and even your assertion that higher ranking members are abusive of their rank... I also don't understand why it would be necessary to attempt to clarify your concerns, here, but surely you have a right to express such concerns; however, when members like me read your concerns (and we perceive a lot of ambiguity and perhaps speaking out of both sides of the mouth) then it may spark some of us into aggressive responses towards you, so it is possible that you are sparking the behavior about which you you are supposedly concerned.